I see my credit cards as being:

bungrider · Feb 7, 2003

Credit cards have low APR's right now.

I'm curious to know how many of you are using this credit to buy things, expand your business, build onto your house, otherwise buy things that you may not be able to afford otherwise.

Alternatively, you could use this money to bolster your trading account. After all, your trading is your business, and businesses borrow money all the time, and there is always the risk that you may not be able to pay the money back.

What I am interested in is those of you who are usually profitable and are using low APR's to borrow some money. How much are you willing to borrow, and where is this money going??

plumlazy · Feb 7, 2003

I see credit cards as *vulture capital* and seldom use them. Just a habit that I developed when rates were higher. I think I'll stick with that habit.

daniel_m · Feb 7, 2003

use it only for online purchases, and other matters of convenience, and always have it paid off.

Quote from bungrider:

Credit cards have low APR's right now.

I'm curious to know how many of you are using this credit to buy things, expand your business, build onto your house, otherwise buy things that you may not be able to afford otherwise.

if they can't afford it without credit, they certainly cannot afford it with it...

only the truest ignoramouses would take on creditcard debt to "buy things" they can't afford....

Tea · Feb 7, 2003

I've tried it just to see if it worked. Paid it back the next month.

The best way to do it is to tell them to stop sending those checks in your statement which someone could steal.

Then call up your credit card company and tell them you want the 1 or 2% interest cash advance/loan without any fee. Only by lowballing them will you find out what the best rate is.

Then have them wire the money to your bank. A lot of banks won't accept the checks they send you because of fraud.

The other kicker is if don't be late on any payment or they raise the interest rate from 4% to 16+% etc. automatically.

Its nice to know you have it, but I would feel a little leery about using it for business - but thats just me.

omcate · Feb 7, 2003

Quote from bungrider:

Credit cards have low APR's right now.

I'm curious to know how many of you are using this credit to buy things, expand your business, build onto your house, otherwise buy things that you may not be able to afford otherwise.

Alternatively, you could use this money to bolster your trading account. After all, your trading is your business, and businesses borrow money all the time, and there is always the risk that you may not be able to pay the money back.

What I am interested in is those of you who are usually profitable and are using low APR's to borrow some money. How much are you willing to borrow, and where is this money going??

I did borrow $9,800 from a Visa Card company at an APR of 2.9% as an experiment. Look too tempting. However, I found out that I need to be careful:

1. They can increase the rate any time without notice. That means you have to be willing to return the money all the time.

2. The credit limit for that card is $10,000. However, they charge me the monthly interest(about $25) on the first statement date. If I borrowed $10,000, I would have to pay an over-the-limit fee immediately.

3. The minimum payment per month is about $205. That means one year later, I'll return at least $2,460.

No free lunch.

Tea · Feb 7, 2003

Good point Omcate - if you are going to do this - do it with a card that you have a zero balance on.

If you do it on a card with a balance - any payments will be used to pay off the lower interest loan while your higher interest rate nomal balance will be paid off last.

Hurricane · Feb 7, 2003

Margin interest rates at many brokers are lower than the teaser rates offered by credit card companies.

trader963 · Feb 8, 2003

I cash advanced my credit cards to start trading. It cost a few bucks, but I figure that's a cost of business. Besides who else would give me a loan for 45K to gamble in the market?

hii a_ooiioo_a · Feb 8, 2003

The best are Citi Card, Discover, and American Express.

Citi Card and Discover will give you special deals with no-fee cash advance checks every few months.

You can take advantage of creditcards if you are smart and read the fine print. Pay off the promotional low rates when the promtional period expires. There's always fees to watch out for, but you can juggle them and use the better promotional balance transfers to pay off the higher rate cards. There's usually cash advance fees or balance transfer fees, but they may be waived for promotions. Citi Card is the best for this.

They all have convenient on-line access and on-line bill payments.
You can check out their latest promotional offers on their websites.

Simba · Feb 9, 2003

Funny you should ask.

I just got these convenience checks from my American Express card, with 3.9% interest, a couple of weeks ago. Coincidently, Costco had a "$50 off on LCD monitors" special deal last week. So I went for it. Bought three 17 inch LCD monitors for $350 each (wanted to get rid of my CRT monitors anyway).

As far as borrowing money to use as trading capital, I think it's not a good idea. Trading money should be risk capital, i.e. cash that you are willing and able to lose, all or in part, without having a major impact on your financial or emotional life.

Just my 2 cents (or $1050 for 3 new monitors, LOL)